CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

~THE SPEAR OF THE FISHERMAN SHARPENED AT DAYBREAK~

"It's not stopping." Irileth pulled the sodden compress away from Solen's throat and replaced it with a fresh one, for all the good it would do. "The spell failed."

"I must've done it wrong, then," said Illia quickly. "I'm sorry, Housecarl, I've only just learned it – I'll try again –"

"You did it right and you know it," Irileth snapped, and regretted her manner at once; the young mage had already expended her magicka to the dregs, both from the fight in Ancestor Glade and the purification spells she frantically wove in the forest below. "Get me my satchel. We'll try another potion."

"Save them," Aela ordered, tightening the bandage. "This isn't some common bite. Agmaer, more water."

The pine forest basked in all the warmth of perhaps the last fine day autumn could offer. The bedraggled, battle-weary party crouched numb to its glory in the verdant shadows. They all made a tired sight, wounded and sore – Aela's face covered in crude stitches, Illia with a bandage pulled tight around her head, Irileth with a fractured arm mending in a sling. They'd pitched a hasty camp to tidy themselves, and stretched Solen out on the bedrolls. His condition had only worsened from the arduous climb back down the mountain; not even their most potent poison or disease curatives had had any effect on whatever Gendolin's bite had left in his veins. He lay between them, wandering in and out of awareness, his fair golden skin paled to a dreadful sickly yellow, blood all round his throat. The horses, tethered nearby, stamped and shied at the neverending stench.

First Balgruuf. Now his Thane. Irileth had roused only to watch Gendolin land the bite. Now the most powerful warrior in Skyrim lay fighting for his every breath because again she had not been fast enough. But the guilt would wait; he was still breathing. Action could still be taken.

"He can't stay like this," Agmaer murmured as he passed Aela his canteen. "Not if the wound won't even close. He'll bleed out."

Illia hissed through her teeth. "That's probably the point."

"Falkreath's a day from here, if we ride hard. If we can get him to the Priest of Arkay –"

"It won't help." Aela doused a scrap of cloth and settled it over Solen's brow. "Whatever's in Gendolin's blood has gone straight down to the bone. The bloodcurse has already taken root."

Agmaer's face fell. "You – you can't mean to say that he's going to turn?"

"I'm saying that he's already turning." Aela's nose wrinkled under its stitches. "His blood's fouling with it even as we speak. You bloody idiot," she added, as Solen's eyes weakly flickered open. "Falling for a vampire's seduction like that. Rayya is never going to give you the end of it."

But she took his hand and squeezed it. She could hear his weakened heartbeat skipping with fear.

"What can we do?" Illia whispered, wringing her hands. Dried blood still caked her face where her head had cracked on a stone. "Can we take him back to Fort Dawnguard?"

Irileth tested Solen's pulse, alarmed that already it had weakened again. Quite damnably, she found herself wishing that Florentius was here. The man might be loonier than a mer on Sheogorath's summoning day, but the cleansing of Redwater Spring left none in doubt of his – or supposed god's – ability to uproot the deepest of corruptions. "He'll have turned by then, Illia. Three days is all a bite needs to incubate. And Isran makes no exceptions."

"Then what about the Dragon?" Agmaer glanced warily at where said Dragon crouched across from them, his bulbous eyes affixed on Solen, the three recovered Elder Scrolls tucked covetously beneath his claws. "You're strong enough to carry him, aren't you?"

"My canyon is a very great distance from here." Fiirnaraan flexed his head frills with thought. "He is quite heavy, for a joor. I will be slow. And should my brother dov see him, and realize their Thuri has become so weak… oh, no. I think that will be worse."

"So, even Dragons have politics," Irileth observed, perplexed despite herself. "Frankly I'm surprised you're considering helping him at all. Solen's by all rights your mortal enemy. Didn't you try to kill him when you first met?"

"Oh, yes, but we were only playing the game. We knew the rules. But the sosvulonah did not play, not fairly. He cheated, and most disgracefully." Fiirnaraan curled his lips, baring his fangs for the first time in their company. "He did not kill the Dovahkiin. He is making him his pet. And no dovah is a pet."

It was rare and somewhat unsettling to watch the mild-mannered Fiirnaraan come to quiet and genuine anger; Irileth almost feared to wonder if he knew how the ancient keep of Dragonsreach had ever earned its name. Fiirnaraan leaned forward, his warm breath gusting gently over Solen's motionless form. "No dovah must be separated from the sun," he whispered. "I should like to hunt the sosvulonah in his name, and Bormahu's."

"No, Dragon." Loathe as Irileth was to deny his willingness. "Securing the Elder Scrolls is more important. Azura knows we've bled enough over them. Fly them back to Dayspring Canyon. We'll look after Solen."

One slicing whip of Fiirnaraan's tail was all the frustration he showed. The Blood Dragon bundled the Elder Scrolls carefully in a leathery talon and rocked back onto his legs. "Do not let the sosvulonah win," he only said, then with a swirl of bracken he vanished into the undergrowth, gentle as a breeze. They knew he was away into flight before the ferns had stilled.

I won't let him win. Solen's words bounded through Irileth's skull with eerie familiarity. The Housecarl grimaced and shook her head. So, that's where he gets it from. Wretchedly passionate creatures.

"But… Irileth, what can we do?" Agmaer asked. "What way even is left for us? For him?"

The Dawnguard fell silent, their eyes on the wound. Already the fresh bandages were starting to redden. Irileth said nothing, but the grim thought was all seeding in their minds. Solen looked dead already; never had she imagined the High Elf could lie so pallid and still.

Aela spoke softly. "One."

The Huntress raised her head, grimmer than they'd ever seen her. "And none of you will like it, him least of all."

Illia realized first. "Aela, you – you can't mean to turn him?"

Solen's eyes suddenly flew open; he coughed thickly and heaved. "Be silent," Irileth ordered sharply, as his lips strained to form words. "You'll rip your throat wider."

"N-no." The tortured rasp was barely audible as a word. Solen sucked in another straining breath. "Not… again…"

Again?! Irileth swung upon Aela. "He's been one before?"

"I was not the exception once." The Huntress's face tautened with a frown. "We all shared the blood. We were a pack."

"Gods' blood," Agmaer exclaimed. "You mean to say the Companions are all werewolves?!"

"Not all," Aela corrected calmly, "and no longer. Three hundred years ago, Harbinger Terrfyg turned the Circle to the ways of the beast. That blood has been passed down, warrior to warrior. It runs through me. Once it ran through him." She spoke as if it were nothing more extraordinary than the inheritance of a sword technique. "It is an old blood, a powerful strain realized across generations. Old and powerful enough that it might devour Gendolin's. One bloodcurse to destroy another."

Irileth suddenly wished she hadn't been so quick to dismiss her guardsmen's nervous reports of eldritch howling in the night. "You're playing with fire," she told Aela sharply. "The Princes don't tolerate a fickle fidelity with their blessings."

"Hircine cares little beyond the laws of the hunt," Aela retorted curtly, "and the bond between hunter and prey. He would certainly be a kinder master than Molag Bal."

It was unusual to speak Daedric matters with a Nord, thought Irileth, let alone one wise to dealing with them. "Besides," said Aela, more quietly, "our claws cut them deeper than any silver could."

They fell silent again, listening to Solen's laboured breaths. It wouldn't be long before they stopped, and then… Irileth's hand circled the hilt of the broken sword, uneasily. Do not let him win. "How would it be done?" she finally asked. She'd never learned deeply of Hircine's ways. "Right here?"

"No." Aela shook her head. "It must be done in a place of old magic, else he can't control the change. We had a place in Whiterun, but that's beyond us. We must take Solen directly to Hircine's shrine in the Glenmoril Cavern, right here within Falkreath Forest, and entreat with the Prince directly."

Solen stirred again, gasping for breath, and Aela gently clasped his head. "I know, brother. But Gendolin has given us no choice. We have to try."

"Won't… work. Killed… all… of them."

"You hunted those witch-priests as a true warrior of the wild. Hircine will remember that hunt. And a vampire lord is a worthy Hare. He won't refuse us."

"But… cure." Solen's eyes widened urgently. "No cure."

Aela grew grim again, and some deep sorrow etched itself into her face, some unspoken realization passing between them. She reached down and took his hand. "Sovngarde is beyond you now, shield-brother. I'm sorry. It's this or the long way out."

Illia sat with a hand over her mouth. Agmaer wrapped a comforting arm around her, similarly grey. Irileth stared down at the buckles of her bracer. She might care nothing for the Nordic land of the dead – her own soul was sworn to Mephala – but she'd never forget how Balgruuf's eyes had lit when he'd spoken of those hallowed halls, or how passionately the Whiterun guards had sworn themselves in Shor's name. Supposedly Solen had slain the World-Eater there, and Sovngarde had gained another firm believer in the High Elf warrior. It was hard to watch his eyes fill with tears and close in resignation. He no longer attempted to speak. Oblivion gives, and Oblivion takes. Irileth drew her mouth into a tight line. I warned you already what this path would do to you. Poor fool.

Aela was at once all business – the very air seemed to crackle with her intensity. "We're losing time. Glenmoril Cavern's three days north from here and we must make it in two. Illia, fresh monkshood – the forest should be full of it. Agmaer, ready the horses. Irileth, help me get him up."

As the two young Dawnguard scrambled to their duties, and Aela wrapped Solen tighter in his cloak, Irileth leaned over and caught Aela's arm. "Hjennir. That name mean anything to you?"

The Huntress's brief tension was tell enough. "Killed six years ago," Irileth persisted, "while on duty in the Wind District. Night patrol."

Aela narrowed her eyes, sensing what approached. "You remember your guards well, Housecarl."

"Hard to forget one who was ripped apart by claws and teeth. I had my suspicions, when I learned what you were. I waited to see if they were so."

"An accident," said Aela, firmly, "and one Solen has regretted every day ever since. But the fault is ours, not his. We underestimated the vigour of his pup."

Irileth tightened her grip. "You said your kind kept their heads when they turned."

"Not when they're newborn." Aela pulled her arm free. "Our hands are both reddened in the name of the Daedra lords, Irileth. We all have our oaths to keep."

Irileth narrowed her eyes. "You needn't fear. Whiterun's justice is no longer mine to give. But nor will I forget, Huntress, or forgive."

They rode hard and northward in restless silence, none of them given to talk. Aela rode at the head, juggling Ember's reins in one hand and holding Solen upright with the other. Irileth brought up the rear. All trace of care and stealth was thrust aside; they rode heavily and hard, the horse's heavy hooves trampling furrows through the overgrown underwood. Not even a child would have difficulty following them, Irileth thought – if they were being followed at all.

The day bled around them like summer snowmelt, and all too soon the daylight hours were faltering, the shadows of Skyrim's mountains stretching long and cool. For Solen's sake and the horses they rested briefly in the thickets. Agmaer, the only uninjured member of the party, insisted upon their care so the wearied others could mind their own reprieve. Irileth was glad of it. The healing potion had done its work, but her arm was still abominably sore, and she knew a mage was not truly replenished until they'd had a chance to sleep.

But one look at Aela and Irileth sensed that to pitch down to snatch even a few hours of rest was not an option for them. A mouthful of water, some chaff for the beasts, and then they'd be away again, all through the night. They eased Solen down from the saddle to change his sodden dressing and coax him to drink. His eyes barely flickered as he was shifted, and he dangled deadweight in their arms. Ember, his beloved warhorse, nuzzled him in the back and whickered with worry. "It looks bad, I know," Aela muttered, as Agmaer pulled the stallion's head away. "Don't worry. He looked worse the first time he tried to drink the twins under the table."

She spoke with deceptive lightness, and Irileth thought it better not to pry for truer thoughts. They propped Solen up against a stump and coaxed some water into him, though he was almost too weak to swallow. Sweat beaded his skin, though he was cold to the touch. "Never thought I'd ever see him like this," Irileth admitted quietly, wiping him dry. "The man's a tempest. Usually can't hold him still long enough to point him in the right direction."

"Comes of hailing from Hammerfell, I think." Aela crouched back on her heels. "He told me once that there the sun will kill you if a blade won't." Her brow furrowed. "They should have gone," she murmured eventually.

Irileth shook her head. "They would've only come back."

"Aye. But they might've known some happiness first."

Happiness. What a debatable premise. Irileth wadded the soiled bandages into a knot and burned them with a cantrip. "Happiness and power rarely wed," she said. "Power is an invitation. The challenge neverending."

"It's a means. A door."

"It's hunger, and like flame that hunger is ceaseless. You consume, or you are consumed. That is the only promise it assures you."

Aela smiled. "Power wears many skins, Housecarl. So long as you know its nature, it will never master you." She turned to apply the fresh wad of bandages against Solen's neck, and stiffened.

Solen's eyes had come open, but no one was behind them. The whites were reddened and bloodshot, the discs of green and gold completely devoid of cognizance. He stared straight past them, transfixed by the final fingers of evening light fading through the branches. He barely seemed even to breathe.

"Not good," Aela answered, before Irileth could ask. "Get him up. We're moving."

The ride through the night was almost as gruelling as the day. In the dark, every towering conifer was identical, and they rode blind in the saddle, trusting in Aela and their horses' night vision to steer them through the living labyrinth. Irileth was the first to admit every pine thicket looked the same as any other to her. How could anyone navigate without being able to see the stars?

The toll of the night's ride was unmistakable to everyone come dawn. The horses wheezed with exhaustion, dragging their hooves with only the greatest reluctance. Illia and Agmaer both looked dead in the saddle. Even Irileth's head was starting to spin, though she was ashamed by such weakness when Aela seemed to become only more awake, not less.

They stopped without energy. "We're not going any further," Irileth warned, as she helped Aela ease Solen down from the saddle. "Not without rest."

It was a statement, not a request. The horses stood foaming with heads bowed, and Ember chuffed where he stood. The riders fared no better; Illia was fainting in the saddle, and Agmaer sprang to catch her before she dismounted onto her face. Aela narrowed her eyes without surprise. She already knew. "Agmaer, which horse is the fastest? I know Ember won't last the gallop."

"T-Tulip, I think – but where are you –?"

"Do what you can to recover her. We're going on alone. We've no more time for delay." Aela swung on Irileth, all intensity. "Rest here, then ride for Falkreath. We'll join you there, afterward."

Afterward – if it was not already too late. Irileth bent over Solen; all colour seemed to have leeched from his skin, and he lay cold and lifeless, his pulse feeble and faint. They tried to give him water, but he no longer roused at all. "He's not already gone?" Irileth demanded. Unconsciously, her hand settled on the hilt of her adamantine sword.

Aela glared at her. "So long as there's a heartbeat, there's life, Housecarl." Her hand rested almost protectively over Solen's heart. "And if it comes to it, I'll do it myself."

Irileth slowly moved her hand from her weapon. Were it anyone else… but Solenarren wasn't anyone. After all he'd done, the least he deserved was a chance.

"Wonder what Isran will make of all this," Illia murmured uneasily, as they watched Aela flog the mare into a gallop. "If he'd have acted differently."

Irileth knew full well what Isran would have expected of his trusted second. "He'd have killed Solen on the spot."

The two riders crashed away through the undergrowth. "They'll be all right, Illia," Agmaer said. "He's the Dragonborn, remember? He'll turn this around. He always does."

Hjennir's savaged remains burst again in Irileth's mind, and she frowned after the shaking ferns. "If that man will even come back."

Aela had been born and raised in the northern Falkreath forests, every waking hour of her childhood spent in preparation to join the Companions. Much of that time had been spent hunting, learning the habits of every beast that walked under Skyrim's sun. She knew these forests well, every leaf and twig. She forsook the Imperial roads, favouring the hidden trails beaten in by generations of elk and deer, the secret paths of wolves and trolls.

So long as her knowledge served, and the mare could last the nonstop gallop, they would reach the cavern in time. Aela refused to let herself consider the alternative, not with Solen all but dead in her arms. "Hang on, man," she muttered aloud, as the noon sun stung their eyes.

It was a gamble, this entire venture – a gamble and prayer, a slim hope that Hircine would hear them. Aela had spoken certainly, to alleviate the Dawnguard's doubts. But no mortal of Nirn could ever claim to truly know a Prince's mind. Solen might have pleased the Prince with his hunts, had even curried His favour personally beneath a bloodmoon – but he had still slain the Huntsman's followers, spurned his gift of beast blood. There was every chance he had angered the Prince instead, and would be left to die and turn upon His altar.

Aela shook her head. She would choose to believe otherwise. Hircine had always held a secret presence within these old forests, the richest hunting grounds the province could offer, the haven of wolf and elk and raven. The more dangerous the prey, the more thrilling the hunt, and the Volkihar's boldness swelled by the month. He's watched it all. He watches us now. He must be watching.

Noon melted into afternoon, and afternoon into nightfall. The mare's breath rattled in her lungs, and blood flecked the froth around her muzzle. She wouldn't last, but she had to. Aela couldn't drag Solen far without transforming, and she had to save her energy for when he did. If he did. But the trees were thickening, the ground sloping. Grit and stone mingled with moss and grass, and a hollow wind blew off sheets of mountain face. A cacophony of scents exploded across her senses, and Aela breathed it in, her heart quickening even as Solen's dimmed almost out of hearing. Just a bit longer. Please.

The stars were out. The wind blew cold. The conifers receded, creaking their deference, before a mountainous tangle of jagged stone and ashen juniper. A dark hollow was formed, meshed amid the ragged limbs of rock, yawning like the maw of a great beast. Aela urged the exhausted mare up the last bit of trail, and threw herself and Solen from the saddle as the ground evened out. Hooking her arms under Solen's own, Aela hurled herself into the dark opening, and the earth swallowed them whole.

It was pitch-dark inside, but the air moved easily, full of the scents of moss and wet rock and moving water. The stink of must and old blood was still prevalent, even though nothing had dwelled in these chambers for years. Aela's breaths panted loudly in the still dark as she dragged Solen down one twisting tunnel after another, blinking until her night-vision lent shape and instinct to the darkness. Old pillars. Unlit torches. Rotten animal-hides. Old magic.

An altar, she willed, as a wide chamber opened. A shrine. A statue. A basin. Anything. Please…

Hircine stood on little ceremony. Stone and blood. The canvas on which life contested in the glorious struggle. The Glenmoril coven had matched that primality, guised in the old-world form of hagravens. Aela followed her nose to where the stench was greatest, until it was acrid in her throat. Skulls leered down from neglected effigies. Braziers lay cold. Skeletons picked clean. A slate of stone, unmarked but for the knives and claws that had rent offering and sacrifice apart – all He needed for an altar. His satisfaction lay in the contest, the struggle, the will for life.

Yet no sooner did Aela reach the scarred, stained slab when Solen's heartbeat dropped away. "No," she hissed, throwing him upright against it. "No, not yet, not yet, curse your eyes!"

There was no time. She all but leapt into the other skin, the glorious agony of creaking bone and engorging muscle lost in the dread that hammered against her bones. She drew her claws across her face, reopening the wounds Gendolin's own talons had left in her, showering the stone in her warm blood, then pressed her muzzle against his cold face until both were soaked. Drink. Drink my life!

But all was silent, fearsomely so. Aela's fur writhed with it. She threw back her head and thundered, plundering the catacombs until every stone was singing.

Lord Hircine, hear us! Hear me, Blackblade's daughter! Bring him back into the pack! Quicken his heart with Your call, and we will lead such a hunt as Skyrim has never known!

She stiffened, panting, every sense straining for those gentle threads that pulled the instincts of every beast to the violent dance. Such things that might only be felt in these old corners of the earth that went beyond all memory of men, these wild shrines to a calling that bound all creatures to one heartbeat, that Hircine wrote as His law.

She bowed her head, her life's red oozing in silent offering over Solen's cold and silent form. To beg would not turn the Huntsman's head. To will, to fight, to rejoice in life's fragility, to claw for every breath… that was the song she must sing. That Solen's voice would join.

Snarling, she tore the bandages from Solen's neck, baring the wound. She pulled back her lips as her blood, glistening black, ran over her teeth, as the Huntsman's chorus hummed potent in her veins. Claw for life, moonbrother, and howl until your lungs are full.

Illia's Candlelight spell vanished without warning. Her startled yelp brought Irileth running to the quivering ferns the mage had abruptly disappeared into. "Illia!"

She pulled up short just in time as the ground dropped suddenly away under the toes of her boots, and Irileth squinting strained through the darkness to where the mage had fallen. Nerevar take this fog! Falkreath Forest glowed with the icy veil most nights, thickening with autumn's bite. It only worsened their predicament of being well overdue behind city walls. Irileth suspected they'd spent most of the night wandering in the wrong direction – it was impossible to navigate under these branches!

Agmaer came crashing along an instant later, his face alive with worry. "Illia! Are you okay?"

"Keep your voice down, man!" Irileth hissed. "You don't know what's listening." It was bad enough they'd lost the road, and themselves in the forest. The night was unsettlingly quiet. "Illia – speak, woman!"

"I'm all right!" Illia's voice, winded but unhurt, rang up from below. Irileth heard her getting up, and a moment later a pinprick of soft blue light highlighted where the mage stood, dispelling the mystery. She'd slid into some sort of gully clearing, clutched with bracken and walled with earth and stone. Its overhanging rims were veiled in ferns and softened by the fog. "Can you see a way up from there, Housecarl?" Illia called softly, pacing out the mossy carpet under her feet. "Or down? It's wide enough for horses, if we wanted to."

Illia's tumble had dispelled some of the stagnancy of the fog, and as it dreamily swirled apart Irileth got the measure of the little grotto for herself. Water, shelter, overgrowth, walls to put our backs to. There were worse places to camp down in until dawn. "Look for a way in," Irileth told Illia. "We'll bring the horses."

Sloped earth and what might have been an old game trail was found at the far end of the swathy grotto, and with care they coaxed the burly horses down the overgrown path until they all stood with Illia inside the ravine. It seemed a lot narrower from the lower level, but at least the rocky slope was high enough for them to put their backs to, and overgrown enough that it hung over their heads. The horses pulled eagerly for the pond. "Let them stand," Irileth ordered, as she circled the walls, "and look for any caves. We don't want unexpected surprises."

Something crunched under her foot – the fractured remains of a charred, rotten human skull grinned up from under Irileth's boot. The Housecarl curled her lip and raised her eyes. So, we aren't the first to find this place.

"Housecarl." Agmaer waved her over; he stood at a corner of an overhang where the earth sloped down and the shadows congealed over the rocks. "There's a passage. I think it's a cave… no, it might be a… doorway? Or something that used to be one. Shor's bones, look at the cracks around it! Maybe a troll smashed through it?"

"Can't be. It's smells of soot in there. Trolls don't go anywhere near fire."

"Yech! Foul smoke. The fire went out in there long ago. Gods, it reeks!"

Irileth ran her hands along the broken doorway, examining what remained of the misshapen hinges. Had to be one hell of a troll, she decided, as Illia arrived and lent a little light to the discovery. A choking black corridor and an old staircase yawned down into the earth below, strewn with the warped rubble of what might have once been a decorative door. Cracks and scrapes dragged all down the descending walls, as if something unrelenting had forcibly widened the passage. The pungent stink of old cinders was acrid on their tongues. "Whatever was in there got burned out years ago," Irileth said.

Agmaer patted his crossbow. "Looks deep. Wouldn't be a bad lair for a bloodsucker to hole up in. Should we, Housecarl?"

"We'll rest first. Keep an eye on it." They'd stumbled round like fools for hours. No point looking for trouble if they weren't sharp. "Keep the horses tacked. I'll take first –"

A distant howl pierced the smothering silence of the night, too long and melodic to be entirely natural. They swung around automatically, and the horses threw up their heads, showing the whites of their eyes. "Is that Aela?" Illia asked, hopefully.

But fingers of disquiet alarm tightened Irileth's spine. "No. I don't think so." Her guardsman's slaughtered body burned itself behind her eyes. "We're not outrunning it lost in the dark. We have to hide. Now."

"But – Irileth, if she succeeded, it might be Solen –"

"That thing isn't Solen yet." The howl split the night again, and this time there was no questioning its savage undertone. It's hunting, in a forest empty of prey. Almost empty. Irileth had half a mind to cut the horses loose and send them scattering into the forest, if only they weren't in such sore need of them. Dayspring Canyon was a long way on foot, and winter was coming.

But their scents – and ours – will lead it straight here. Irileth glowered down into the passage. Unless one stink can hide another. She called a handful of flames into an upturned palm, basking the chamber in the red scorch of firelight. "Wait here. I'll see if it's deep enough to bring the horses down."

Though Irileth had never set foot into these chambers, she couldn't shake the air of familiarity as she picked her way down into the dark. Many of Morrowind's old crypts had been like this, crushing blackness, aged stone and the stink of char on the tongue, though usually the darkness would be disciplined with candlelight by now, and the musty air sweetened with incense offering. Irileth's hand settled on the broken blade as the corridor widened, and the soft sound of running water met her ears.

The passage of old Nordic stone opened up into a large natural cavern, certainly wide enough to comfortably take all her party. The stink of scorch and char levelled some, thanks to the fresh water that gurgled in a steady fall from the cavern walls to form a wide pool at its edge. But it wasn't just a cave – here and there were signs of more than previous inhabitation. Settlement. An old disused forge stood off in an alcove to one side. Two other passages wandered off deeper into the earth, lined with rusted torch brackets. A perfectly circular cavity in the upper wall still glittered at its rims with the jagged fragments of stained glass. Several charred skeletons sprawled over the flattened stone floor, the vestiges of scorched and rusted weapons strewn around them like leaves.

It stinks of death in here. Irileth's piercing whistle echoed all the way back up to the surface. Old death.

She stayed on guard, but no hidden peril revealed itself. Illia was the first down, leading her black, baulking at the smoke-stench, though she'd wrapped her cloak over its eyes to calm it. "Still quiet out there," Illia reported, at Irileth's prompt. "We haven't heard it howl in awhile. Not sure if that's good or bad."

"Better to be cautious than dead. I'll take this one. Bring the others."

It took several trips and far more time than Irileth would've liked to lead the remaining three horses into the subterranean chamber; the shying beasts had to be led blinded with a stern hand on their bridle. Ember, Solen's warhorse, barely managed to squeeze his bulk through the last passageway. But soon enough they all stood safely within the big cavernous chamber, marvelling at the odd fortune of their discovery. Illia relit some of the standing braziers around the cavern, lending a bit of welcome warmth and light to the icy gloom, while Irileth fished out some sooty coals from the neglected forge pit and fashioned a rudimentary firepit. If there was still danger lurking within these caverns, no point facing it cold in the dark.

"Strange old place, isn't it?" Illia murmured, as she and Irileth warmed themselves gratefully over the shimmering coals. "Wonder who used to live here. What happened to them."

Agmaer had been drawn to the back of the cavern, where the old Nords had carved out a decorative wall into the bedrock. Irileth stood sharply and marched to his side. "You know better than to wander into the shadows alone, Dawnguard."

"Sorry, Housecarl. Only I never thought I'd get to see one of these up close." Agmaer grinned at Irileth's disapproving frown. "Pa used to tell me about them all the time. How the old Nords kept ancient scriptures written on these walls."

"Did the old Nords have anything useful to say about killing vampire lords?"

"Well… they might. Only I can't read Dragon."

Now that Irileth looked properly, the odd dots and scratches marking the curving wall did look reminiscent to the Dragon research that had so fascinated Farengar. Agmaer stepped back in admiration. "You suppose Solen ever found this place? Pa said there's Dragon secrets hidden in old stone like this."

He fell awkwardly silent, remembering what might be lurking in the forest. Irileth stiffened under a different enlightenment. "He already did." Two and two had come together with sudden rapidity. But she had to be sure. "Illia, watch the horses. Signal if there's trouble. Agmaer, with me."

If either were surprised at her abruptness, they had the good sense not to show it. Irileth swept up the adjacent staircase and deeper into the cavern catacombs, Agmaer close at her heel. "D'you recognize this place, Housecarl?"

"I don't care to speculate." Old corridors opened up around them, and under the soot and scars of fire all the signs of habitation were showing. Flames danced in Irileth's palm, illuminating the way. "Only Solen mentioned how he found the Brotherhood's sanctuary in Falkreath, when he recounted the event to our Jarl."

"The Brotherhood?" Agmaer's face whitened. "Not the D-Dark –?"

"Stop stammering, boy. They're all dead. No need to jump at their shadows anymore."

"But – this place? You think this is the place where they…?" Agmaer looked around and gulped, as if anticipating knives to flash out at him from every corner. "Kyne have mercy. Does Illia know?"

"You can tell her once we find proof."

But proof was not hard in the finding. The ancient Nordic ruins that framed the natural cavern system showed signs of former life under the char and decrepit wreckage. Tables and chairs, shattered urns and long-rotted food, upturned beds and bookshelves, a destroyed alchemical laboratory. And skeletons. Those were in the plenty, scorched in the flames, sundered under an ivory greatsword's bite, shattered like glass under cracked walls. Solen had been thorough.

Agmaer seemed to have overcome his fear of ghosts and assassins, and looked around with all his usual curiosity as they entered what might have once been a living area. "Must've been quite the place in its day, eh?"

Irileth scoffed at that. "Please. This is a hole. A den. The latrines in the Tong Guildhall had more dignity to them."

"The Tong, Housecarl?"

Irileth almost considered not explaining. She rarely thought about her past, and cared less to relive it. But it felt momentous, standing in the ashes of the last of her timeless rivals. It put her in a strangely satisfied mood. "The Morag Tong," she said. "We rivalled the Dark Brotherhood in every sense."

"We?"

"Aye. We. They formed my younger years. Shadow, worship, and murder." She held Agmaer's gaze steadily, watching his face. "The Tong are assassins, boy, the truest and eldest of the kind." Sure enough, he panicked, and unexpectedly Irileth chuckled. Ah, humans. Balgruuf had been much the same. "Don't fear for your neck, boy. I haven't sent a soul to Sithis for many, many years, and I doubt I will again."

"Sorry, Housecarl. I know, only –" Agmaer managed a nervous laugh. "That you're – you were an assassin… like them…"

"Them!" Irileth turned and spat. "Don't confuse the Tong with this lawless vermin. We held to Mephala's teachings, our service to the Black-Handed Mother honourably executed; these common cutthroats slithered after their so-called 'Night Mother' and squatted in the dark, in the vilest parody of their forebears." She sensed Agmaer's apprehensive confusion and sighed. "I wouldn't expect outlanders to understand. Hence why I don't care to make show of it."

Agmaer blushed. "I'm sorry, Housecarl."

"It can't be helped. Know only that though my Tong days are long behind me, the pride remains."

The next doorway they passed through opened into what might have once been a prayer chamber, with the great circular cavity inset in the wall. The twisted remains of something that might have once been an iron sarcophagus lay sprawled beneath the broken window, blown open and scorched black. "It's like a firestorm passed through," Agmaer observed with the sort of hesitant wonder that came of beholding destruction.

Irileth snorted, peering into the charred remains of an old cabinet. "One did." Something heavy shifted inside as she tugged on the drawer. It was the work of a moment to wrench it open and reach inside. Her fingers closed on pages and embroidered leather.

"Find something?" Agmaer asked, as Irileth extracted the heavy book.

"Something," Irileth agreed. The tome was thick as a pillow and heavy as sin. A decorative skull sprawled across the cover. "A grimoire," she decided, as she turned the covers open. "So, these barbarians recorded their compacts after all."

Agmaer grimaced at the lines of names that sprawled in columns down each yellowed page. "It looks evil. I feel I oughtn't ask, Housecarl."

"A sensible choice." Yet Irileth found herself explaining anyway. "Grimoires are tomes of death. Records of lives taken, or given. This appears to be the latter; a compact of this Sanctuary's flesh and blood. The Tong kept one for its members as well." What primitive ranking, Irileth thought disdainfully, as the pages flowed under her scathing eyes. Murderer, Eliminator, Silencer, Speaker…

"There are a lot of names," Agmaer murmured, apprehensive all over again. "Gods' blood. To think all these people… how many they've murdered in their lifetimes…"

The last page turned under their eyes, the final generation of Tamriel's Brotherhood, their ultimate fates forever incomplete upon the yellowed parchment. Irileth scoffed and made to throw the book away. Until the last of those names leapt out at her.

Gendolin. Listener.

"Is that…?" Agmaer had seen it too. "Irileth…!"

"I know." The inky scrawl, written in a delicate hand, etched itself into Irileth's memory. The stink of destruction was heavy on her tongue. I know.

"It might not be him," Agmaer offered in the uneasy silence. "Maybe it's another –"

"Do you believe that?" Irileth threw the grimoire aside. It struck the shelled sarcophagus with a hollow bang.

"But – but Solen killed them all," Agmaer stammered. "Didn't he?"

Frenzied whinnying interrupted Irileth's answer. Wordlessly she and Agmaer sped from the chamber. In seconds they'd leapt down the staircase and into the main cavern, where Illia was on her feet with a cautionary spell in hand. The horses' ears were back, their nostrils flared, the whites around their eyes showing. "Something spooked them," Illia gasped, as Agmaer and Irileth ran into the firelight. "I think they –"

Something clattered in the entrance corridors, like rubble overturned. Agmaer reached for his crossbow, Irileth her blade. The horses threw themselves against their tethers, hooves drumming the beat of cornered prey. But it wasn't a mistake, Irileth told herself, her eyes unmoving from the shadows that clustered below the stairs. Better here than out there, where we have backs to the wall, and it with nowhere to hide. "Hold your nerve," she growled, as the low rasp of grated breath sighed around their ears. "Whatever comes next."

A pair of gleaming eyes glowed from the darkness. It prowled into emergence a moment later, identical in Aela's in appearance but for the hue of its pelt, golden-brown like the prairie grass that carpeted Whiterun Hold. Its bicolored eyes, unsettlingly familiar, ached with a menace Irileth had never considered them capable of bearing. Curtains of reddened saliva trailed in strings from its lips.

It was covered in blood. Its face, its claws, its hand-like forepaws, the side of its neck. Irileth only wondered if it had come from Aela or the horse that had been taken and would likely not be seen again. Narrowing her eyes, she stepped forward; her adamantine silver flashed a warning in the firelight, and the werewolf barked savagely in answer, making them jump. There's no trace of him left at all, Irileth thought, watching it prowl side to side with a grace that belied the hulking muscle. It failed, didn't it? And yet it still hadn't attacked. If it were a truly mad beast, they'd already be fighting.

But a fight was inevitable. It stopped suddenly and rose easily onto its hind legs, a tower of muscle and fur, and Irileth's knuckles whitened around the hilt. I drew my blade on you when we first met, Solen. Don't make me use it now.

Solen growled, a sound that shook them to their very bones and rattled the teeth in their heads; he threw himself forward just as Aela exploded from the shadows behind him, roaring like a glacier split open. Solen twisted around and they went down together in a noise fit to sunder the ears. Irileth leapt back, throwing out an arm to warn the others to do the same, giving the whirlwind of fangs and fur as wide a berth as the chamber allowed.

It was over almost as quickly as it started – Solen was thrown skidding across the chamber and into the waterfall pool. He surfaced a moment later, yelping as he scrambled from the frigid water, and shook himself down like a wet dog. By then Aela had placed herself in front of the Dawnguard, panting with exertion but the flame of battle undiminished in her eyes. Wounds fresh and older glistened under their fur. They must have been fighting from the moment he'd turned.

"This is awful," Illia whispered, her voice trembling, as the two werewolves squared off again. "It's like we're meat being fought over."

It was an unpleasantly resonant comparison. The cavern rang with their growling, and Agmaer, quivering, raised his crossbow towards Solen. Irileth reached out and forced its point down. "Wait."

Something had shifted. Aela's growls were louder, sharper. When they lashed from her in whipcracks of sound, Solen put down his ears and flinched. Though he still bristled defensively, his tail slunk lower, and his movements became abrupt and erratic with confusion. He started to pace, then rocked backwards, shaking his head. Whimpers and whines mingled with his growls.

Aela suddenly leapt forward and took him by the scruff, and shook him until they heard his skull rattling. Solen's growls disappeared entirely in a chorus of plaintive yelping. Aela released him and snapped harshly at his flattened ears. Solen's tail dived between his legs and he hunched down at once, baring his throat under her glowering eyes, a pup chastened by his elder. Panting, the red werewolf stepped back. One final snarl hummed from her jaws, commanding, and then she sat silent and watching as he shifted back.

Golden fur, claws, fangs and tail shrank back into their roots and the unsettling noise of twisting bone and flesh. In half a minute Solen – the real Solen – knelt on all fours in the creature's place, breathing raggedly, his forehead almost on the ground. Aela switched her skin with disorienting swiftness and knelt down beside him.

The Dawnguard still stood frozen with the horror of it all, even Irileth, though she managed to find her tongue. "Solen?" she prompted warily. Her blade remained ready in her hand.

Solen straightened up, shivering. His face was swathed in grime, his neck looked half laid-open. He found Irileth's eyes and smiled with a fraction of coherence.

"Hope I didn't scare you," he said, and fainted.